


The Unrequited Soulmate

by ThisColdSunset



Series: These Tangled Threads [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 12:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3936481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisColdSunset/pseuds/ThisColdSunset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“At age 16, you will feel a tightness around your pinkie finger, and if you look right at that moment, you will see a little red string begin to form, all tied around your finger on one end, and the other end leading away into the distance, to wherever your soulmate is waiting.”<br/>The red string of fate. Oh, how many times Kageyama had heard about it. And yet, when he turned sixteen, there was no tightness around his finger. No red string. No soulmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The String

“Hey, Kageyama!” A small orange haired boy was hanging over his desk and jabbing him with a pencil, trying to get his attention.

Kageyama scowled and hissed a sharp, “What?”

The shorter boy was indifferent towards the hostility, however, and instead chose to roll his eyes and jab the younger with the pencil again.

“It’s lunchtime, Bakageyama. Time to eat.” Yet another jab from the pencil.

“I swear to god, Hinata,” Kageyama’s frown was deepening with every word, until his face was a mass of frown lines and angry eyes, “If you jab me with the pencil one more time, I will kill you.”

“Then come eat with me.” Hinata grinned up at the other boy, who had not moved from his seat.

“No. Go away.”

And they were off, Hinata laughing uncontrollably as he raced away from his fellow teammate, ducking past other school goers, who were all stepping out of the way instinctively as he was followed by the fast-moving and menacing presence of Kageyama Tobio.

Everyone rolled their eyes as the two disappeared up a flight of stairs.

“Where are they going?” A girl whispered to the boy beside her, who smiled down and brushed her pinkie finger, where they were connected by a thin string that no one else could see.

“Probably up to the roof.  Those idiots are always running up to eat there.  Good thing, too. Otherwise they’d always be bothering everyone down at the cafeteria. Speaking of which, do you want to head down there now?”

The girl smiled and nodded, and she blushed when he bent down and kissed her forehead.

*

“Hey, Kageyama?”

“What is it, dumbass?”

Hinata narrowed his eyes at the insult, but did not rise up to the bait.  He’d already been hit over the head today, and he was not begging for a rematch.

“Wasn’t it your birthday over the weekend?”

“What of it?” Kageyama’s voice had become incredibly cold, but it wasn’t as cold as Tsukishima’s. That guy could hit the temperatures of Antarctica without even trying.

“Well, you finally turned sixteen, right? And we all know what happens when you turn sixteen…” Hinata trailed off deliberately and waggled his eyebrows at the younger boy, eyes flicking to the boy’s pinkie finger and back to his eyes.

Yet Kageyama remained silent, staring stonily into the distance and probably trying to set things on fire with his eyes alone.

Growing impatient, Hinata threw his empty lunch container at him, and he received yet another fiery glare.

“What?” A step further from a snarl, this one was a low growl from an angry dog. But it was still Kageyama, and Kageyama was at least smart enough to know that murdering a fellow teammate was against school policy.  And probably illegal, too.

“You got that string thingy on your finger, right? Do you know who it is? Which direction is it going?” The questions flowed out of the short ass’s mouth like a dam that had just burst.

The idiot was probably holding those questions in all day, all the way from morning practice until now, Kageyama mused.

“Of course I got it, dumbass. I’m not defective or anything. It’s off into the east or some shit.” Kageyama pointed in the direction that he assumed was east, ignoring the feeling in his stomach.

Indigestion, he told himself firmly.

Hinata frowned; a flash of something crossing his face, and disappearing as quickly as it had come, leaving his face like a blank canvas.

“Oi, what’s that look for dumbass? Do you know who yours is yet?”

“No, of course not!” Hinata scoffed, “I don’t know anyone who lives over there.” He pointed in Kageyama’s direction, and the taller boy turned around to look.

“You know, it could be someone from overseas. That would suck, but foreigners look alright, too.” Kageyama suggested.

“Of course my soulmate will be beautiful!” Hinata yelled standing up, “They’ll be from somewhere exotic, like Hawaii, or Australia, or Sweden!”

“I don’t think any of those countries are in that direction, Hinata.” Kageyama said flatly.

“Hawaii is a state, Bakageyama. Even I know that.”

*

Kageyama lay down in his bed and turned off the lamp on his bedside table, and began staring at the darkened ceiling. His stomach still felt a bit off, and he was wondering if it really was guilt.

“I shouldn’t feel obligated to tell that dumbass anything. Besides, it’s my personal business, and it’s not even that big of a deal. It happens more often than is known. The doctor said so.”

But Kageyama couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness as he raised his left hand and looked at the pinkie finger, which remained devoid of any sort of string.

*

Hinata lay down on his bed after turning the light off at the wall and racing to his bed as fast as he could so that nothing in the dark could get him.

He wasn’t scared of monsters, it was just that he didn’t like the dark too much, and he normally left his laptop turned on so that its glow would light up the room a little. Tonight, however, he would go without it. Even Natsu slept without a nightlight at this point.

He absentmindedly touched his pinkie finger and felt a sad little jolt in his heart as he remembered what his mother had said over dinner. How there were some people who were defective and were given a soulmate who was not connected to them. How they were lonely, forever. The unrequited soulmates, his mother called them.

“I am defective,” Hinata whispered into the night, “I am unrequited. I will have to watch as he finds the person that he is connected to and gets married and loves them. It’s okay, though. I can do that. Because I am unrequited. And I have to.”

He petted the string once more, and tears welled up in his eyes as he felt the familiar jolt in his heart as he thought about the younger boy whose string went off into the east instead of leading to Hinata’s own finger, like it was meant to.

 


	2. Fraying Edges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s about my soulmate, Natsu. Something went wrong, and it’s really bad…”

“Shouyou, darling, are you well?” The boy’s mother still spoke in a formal way, even after living with her casual-as-can-be husband for a good seventeen years or so.  She held herself properly, with a certain poise and elegance that drew eyes to her in the street, but now her sophisticated image was marred by a worried frown as she observed her oldest child, who was currently sprawled on the ground, deep shadows beneath his eyes. She received a groan in response to her question, and she nodded to herself as she left his room and floated down the hallway to help Natsu get dressed.

*

Hinata stared up at the ceiling, not really knowing what to do. He had spent the entire night in various non-sleep related activities and giving himself inspirational pep talks about how love wasn’t a necessary part of his existence and how he’d much rather be unrequited than be stuck with Kageyama for life. Until, of course, he switched to bawling his eyes out and scratching at his pinkie as if he could remove the stupid crimson string attached to it. As could be expected, he hadn’t slept much at all, leaving him in an almost comatose state on the floor after a failed attempt to get out of bed at his usual waking time.

“Shouyou?” A soft voice whispered from the doorway, followed by even softer footsteps until they stopped just by the high schooler’s head. Little Natsu crouched down beside her brother and watched him carefully. “Are you sick?” Her brother shrugged, and she nodded to herself, not unlike her mother in her actions and mannerisms. “Then what’s the matter?” Natsu watched as her brother turned his head slightly so that their eyes would meet. He pressed his lips tightly together, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t really want to acknowledge it. “Do you promise never to tell?” Natsu nodded, remaining silent, and waited for her brother to say something. “It’s about my soulmate, Natsu. Something went wrong, and it’s really bad…” He trailed off helplessly and watched his baby sister anxiously from the ground.

*

“Good morning, Tobio!” Kageyama watched as his mother danced around the kitchen, long blue-black hair swaying and her eyes full of mischief as she mixed some sort of concoction in a bowl.

“I slept through my alarm. It’s late.” The tall teenager’s voice was monotonous as he stared at his mother, not really knowing what else to do.

“No school for you today. I have to take you to the doctor’s, and then we can go do some random things with whatever time we have left.” She was smiling brightly as she said these things, still stirring her mixture.

“What are you making?”

“Pancakes.” She said with all seriousness as she added food colouring and a cup of flour.

“I don’t think pancakes are meant to be green, mum.”

“For normal pancakes, sure. But this is my pancake recipe, and green is the best colour in the world, so what other colour could they possibly be?”

Kageyama shrugged, and sat down at the kitchen bench and watched the woman make green pancakes.

Later on, after remembering to turn the stove on so that the pancakes would actually cook, the two were sitting in relative silence as they ate their green pancakes. Kageyama’s mum would occasionally glance at her son, wondering what he was thinking, before she came to the conclusion that he wasn’t looking too good.

“Are you sick or something, Tobio?”

“I’m fine.”

She poked his cheek and whispered to him conspiratorially, “Are you worried about today, with the doctor?”

“No, of course not. Last time he said that it wasn’t the first time for this to happen.” Kageyama whispered back, and it was mostly true. Sort of.

“Well eat your greens and get ready so we can head off, yeah?” Her voice was still low, as if she was confiding a secret or something, and Kageyama rolled his eyes as he shoved his so-called “greens” into his mouth.

*

Hinata sat beside Natsu, the two of them watching some Disney movie that Hinata hadn’t been paying attention to at all. Instead, he’d been going over the strange little conversation that he had had with his little sister. It had been surprisingly serious, what with Natsu not even in school at the moment, and yet she had told him what he should do as if it was the most obvious thing to do in the world.

_“Have you told them that you’re connected to them yet?”_

_“Of course not, why would I do that?”_

_“Because you’re always supposed to tell them, just so they know that they’re your soulmate. It’s in all the cartoons and stuff.” Her eyes were round and wise, telling him these things like some fortune teller who knows everything._

_“Ah. I suppose I should, but I’m unrequited and it would make things awkward.”_

_“What does awkward mean?”_

_“Embarrassing. Uncomfortable.”_

_“I don’t get it. Your words are too big.”_

_“Just forget about it.”_

_Natsu was silent for a moment before asking, “Who is it?”_

_Hinata drew in a breath, closed his eyes, and let the name out in an exhale, “Kageyama.”_

_“The one who comes over sometimes? The grumpy one?”_

_“Yeah.”_

Maybe Natsu was right. He should tell Kageyama, but all that Hinata could think about was the humiliation he would feel as he stood in front of his team mate and told him the truth.

*

“I don’t like needles.” Kageyama grumbled as he watched the nurse out of the corner of his eye as she prepared to stick him with the sharp blood stealer.

“Why not? I like them.”

Kageyama turned sharply to glare at his mother, who was smiling at him.

“That’s because you’re weird.” He snapped, and then he shrieked as he felt the needle dig into his skin.

“And we’re done. It wasn’t that bad, was it, now?” The nurse smiled at him as she cleaned up the tiny hole in his arm and placed a plaster right on top before taking the blood sample away.

“What was this meant to do, anyway?”

His mother shrugged at him, and he sighed. It’s not as if he didn’t really know, the doctor had repeated it over and over, but now he had nothing else to talk about.

 _If Hinata was here, he’d probably think of something to say. Definitely something stupid, but at least it would be something._ Kageyama thought. He just wanted something to distract him from the deafening silence as he waited for someone to come back and tell him why exactly he didn’t have a Fate String.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give some feedback, it'd be much appreciated!!


	3. Knotted Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, Tobio, let’s set you at ease. There is nothing at all the matter with you.”

“Well, Tobio, let’s set you at ease. There is nothing at all the matter with you.”

Kageyama had no idea what to say to that. Doctor Unpronounceable-Name was just sitting there, in his pristine white lab coat as if he’d just stepped out from a cliché movie, and he had the _audacity_ to tell him that there was nothing at all wrong with him.

If there was nothing wrong with him, Kageyama sure as hell wouldn’t be spending a school day in the doctor’s office instead of practicing volleyball or spending his lunch periods with Idiot Hinata, and that was a fact.

And Kageyama was just about ready to tell the doctor exactly that, but his mother beat him to it.

“Then why on earth are we here? If that’s the case, how come our private doctor recommended we make an appointment to see you? Why was there a need for blood tests? Do you really think I would pull my son out of classes to waste money on a doctor’s visit, only to be told that nothing is wrong with him? Do you take me for an idiot?”

The lab coat attired man gaped at the seemingly quiet woman, who now had a frustrated scowl fixed like a mask on her face, not unlike the facial expression that her son had been pulling all that morning, during discussions and blood testing.

“Mrs Kageyama, please. I certainly wasn’t questioning your intelligence, and I wasn’t trying to insinuate that there is no reason to be here. Quite the contrary, really,” Doctor Unpronounceable-Name cried out hurriedly, trying to sate the fiery mother’s temper.

Her eye was twitching as she adjusted her position in her uncomfortable hospital chair, but she gestured for the doctor to continue.

Her son, however, was watching the two of them in awe. He stared at his mother mainly because of the surprising speed of her emotion changes, and he stared at the doctor because of his incredible ability to begin grovelling at the feet of a woman half his own size.

“Er… Well. Alright. So the issue at hand is simply that, erm…”  He was fumbling for his words now, having lost his confidence after being berated, but after a stern look from Kageyama’s mother, he ploughed onwards. “Tobio is very healthy, I assure you. However, he is actually rather underdeveloped for his age. I’m going to make a wild guess by saying that Tobio here was a late bloomer?”

Kageyama flushed, and covered his face with his hands, and he could actually feel the blood rushing to his head when he heard his mother say _yes_ in an all-serious tone.

*

“So, Shouyou, my darling,” his mother whispered with a cool hand to his forehead, sweeping back the ginger curls resting upon his forehead, “What is it that is the matter?”

“I just feel a little off.” Hinata murmured, not meeting his mother’s eye. He’d been lost in thought since that morning, after talking to his naïve little sister, whose life problems consisted of sweet things like lack of cookies at school.

“Okay… Now tell me what the issue truly is. Be honest with me now.”

“It’s… It’s about my soulmate.” A whisper, hardly a sound.

“Oh, my sweetest child. Matters of the heart are what I am best at! Tell me your woes and I’ll fix them right up for you!” Hinata’s mother smiled at him and settled in the place beside him on the sofa.

“I don’t think you can fix this, mother.”

“Oh? Tell me, then.”

“I’m… I’m unrequited, mother. We’re not connected. Whatsoever.” Hinata said quietly, and he looked down at his hands, not wanting to see the expression on his mother’s face.

“Oh, _Shouyou_.”

“He doesn’t love me, mother. I love my soulmate, and he doesn’t even know.”

*

Kageyama left the doctor’s a blushing and stammering mess. He had spent a good while listening to the doctor explain about how the Fate String was often triggered into appearance once someone reached sexual maturity, which was most often around age 16.

Being told that the reason why his Fate String hadn’t formed was because he had not yet reached full sexual maturity was not the way Kageyama had wanted to spend his day.

“So, Tobio. I suppose I should just start feeding you hormones or something to make your string appear, huh?” Kageyama’s mother laughed as she put the car into reverse.

Kageyama rolled his eyes dramatically. His mother would very likely spend a lot of her free time teasing him about this.

“Do you feel better about it now, Tobio?”

Her gaze was settled on the road, concentrating on the road that was flying by at an almost alarming rate.

“Yeah, I do,” Kageyama told her, “So I suppose all I have to do now is wait.”


	4. Torn Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Whatever. If you have to know, it was about my Fate String.”

“Hey, Kageyama! What’d I miss yesterday?”

Kageyama raised his head from his desk to meet the sharp gaze of the short ginger who everyone kept assuming was his friend. Were they friends? Kageyama had to shake his head slightly. The thought was a bit daunting. He’d never really had a friend before. He wouldn’t really know how to deal with something like that.

“How would I know? I was away yesterday.” He found himself grumbling.

“Seriously? Me too! I was… Sick!” Hinata was flushing slightly, and looking at the space directly above Kageyama’s head.

“Did you have to think about that? Dumbass.”

“You’re the dumbass, dumbass! Now come eat with me. I’m hungry, and I haven’t got all day, you know!” Hinata cried, pointing an accusing finger at the taller boy.

“You’re the one wasting my time!” Kageyama hissed, but he was already getting up, and planning on dashing up to the roof.

Hinata had, funnily enough, been thinking the exact same thing, and fellow students began pressing themselves flush against walls and sometimes even other students to get out of the way of the two wild animals.

“There they go again…” Someone whispered loudly, and many people snorted with differing degrees of amusement and annoyance.

*

Up on the roof, the two boys were panting, both of them stretched across the ground with lunches dropped on the ground somewhere behind them.

“Draw.” Hinata whispered.

“Liar. I won, and you know it.” Kageyama panted in reply.

The two struggled up into upright sitting positions, and Kageyama used his foot to nudge the lunchboxes over towards them after he had watched Hinata struggle for a moment attempting to do the same thing, but without any real results.

“Short ass.”

“Hey!”

The two fell into relatively comfortable silence occasionally punctuated with some glares from either or both companions.

“Hey, Kageyama, why weren’t you at school yesterday?”

“Why weren’t you at school?” Kageyama snapped without thinking.

“I told you! I was sick!” Hinata yelled defensively.

“Oh. Right. Well, I was at the doctor’s.” Kageyama muttered, trying not to seem embarrassed, because he wasn't, and he wouldn't want Hinata to get confused.

“Oh. What for?” Hinata questioned, looking down.

“Stop being so nosy!”

“I’m sorry! I'm just curious, I don’t mean to pry!”

“Whatever. If you have to know, it was about my Fate String.” Kageyama whispered, not really wanting Hinata to hear, but he sort of wanted to be honest with the other boy. He scratched at his left hand.

Hinata looked up suddenly, no longer paying attention to the bug crawling across his shoe.

“What?” He squeaked. “What for?”

Kageyama flushed and took a deep breath.

“It’s just, well…” He raised his palm as if he could show Hinata his stringless finger, “It hasn’t really…” The rest of Kageyama’s sentence choked off in his throat.

There was a string there. He could see it, clear as day, a bright red string tied neatly to his pinkie finger. His eyes followed it as it looped around the ground and trailed off towards… Hinata. Kageyama could feel his eyes widening comically at the sight.

Kageyama could feel the horror creeping up in his throat. His string had finally appeared, and he should have been celebrating, but… He was connected to Hinata. And Hinata was attached to someone off in Hawaii or something, wasn’t he?

“I think I’m gonna be sick…” Kageyama muttered as he stood up and ran off, leaving a surprised Hinata in his wake.

Hinata looked at the two lunchboxes on the ground beside each other, and he could feel a sob building up in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. How could he have let himself get his hopes up? He knew that he was unrequited. He wouldn’t end up with Kageyama. He needed to tell the other boy. He couldn’t keep doing this. With a resigned feeling deep within him, he gathered up the two lunchboxes, stood up, and began searching for the other boy.

He tried to ignore the tears welling in his eyes and blurring his vision slightly.

He tried so hard.

*

“This cannot be happening,” Kageyama whispered, and he could feel the familiar sensation of being alone creeping up on him. “I’m unrequited.”

He tried to ignore the tears welling in his eyes and blurring his vision slightly.

He tried so hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with my story! Your kudos are much appreciated, and I adore all of the comments!!!  
> The story is nearing it's close now... So thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!!


	5. Woven Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignoring his instincts to "Just run dammitt, don’t you remember that every bad thing that ever happened to you happened in a toilet?" Hinata reached out with his right, string-barren hand and pushed the heavy door open, his left hand absentmindedly touching the string on his smallest finger.

Hinata had, after a few moments of idiotically walking up and down the mostly empty corridors of the high school, realised that he could simply follow the scarlet thread tied around his little finger and had traced the weaving pathway that Kageyama had taken, until he came to a standstill just outside of the male lavatory.

Ignoring his instincts to _just run dammitt, don’t you remember that every bad thing that ever happened to you happened in a toilet_ ; Hinata reached out with his right, string-barren hand and pushed the heavy door open, his left hand absentmindedly touching the string on his smallest finger.

The short, orange-haired boy strode into the bathroom with false confidence laced into his very being and layer of determination pasted over his face. Despite his efforts, however, the veneer of his mask was cracked, his true emotions glistening between the fissures like light creeping out from beneath a locked door.

“Kageyama?”

“Fuck off.”

The brusque reply hit Hinata right in the chest, and he stared at the cubicle door that shielded his verbal attacker as if it was the door’s fault.

“I need to tell you something.” Hinata forced out through gritted teeth, pressing down the urge to break down the door and bitch slap the idiot on the other side of it who was making everything so damn difficult.

“I really don’t care, Hinata. Go annoy someone else; I am not in the mood.”

“Please.” Hinata whispered, his voice quivering along the way.

“No.” Came the almost-whispered reply.

Hinata clenched his hands into tiny balls of emotion by his sides, his lips pressed together so thin that they almost disappeared, and his eyes scrunched together to keep the stinging tears inside because _he was not going to cry in front of Kageyama again_.

With a deep breath, Hinata’s resolve returned once more, and he crouched down in front of the cubicle and slunk through the gap between door and cold flooring, his small stature allowing for speedy movement and removing all needs to drag long legs beneath the door. He stood up with as much dignity as he could muster, straightened his uniform, and met the glassy, horrified gaze of the other boy.

“What in the hell, Hinata?” Was all that Kageyama could really say to the spectacular entrance of the ginger into the toilet cubicle.

“I need to talk to you.” Hinata replied, shrugging as he prepared himself for the ensuing embarrassment that he would likely be feeling in a few moments time.

“I already told you, Hinata, I don-“

“My Fate String is attached to you, Kageyama.”

Kageyama’s eyes went round, and air escaped him with a whoosh. The short ass in front of him kept babbling about things, getting louder and louder as his anxiety built up higher and higher within him, and his face was a mixture of snot, tears and _scared_.

Before Kageyama truly knew what he was doing, he had reached out and tugged the other boy flush against his chest and held him there as tight as he could.

“Kageyama?” Hinata squeaked out.

“Thank god, thank god, thank god…” Kageyama whispered into the shorter boy’s bright hair. “I thought I was unrequited but it’s all okay, it’s all okay…”

Hinata remained silent as he thought about what the taller meant by his words, his hands unconsciously gripping Kageyama’s shirt.

After a few moments of the two standing there in the toilet cubicle holding each other like true dumbasses, Kageyama pulled away from the tiny boy and looked deep into Hinata’s eyes.

“I’m your soulmate, and you’re mine. Thank crap you’re connected to me, too.” Kageyama whispered.

“You’re connected to me, too? But I thought you said that-“

“Shut up. You lied, too. So just… Shut up and forget it.” Kageyama hissed, his face heating up.

“So… We’re soulmates?” Hinata questioned, his chest feeling weird and not-sad.

“Shut up, Hinata.”

Hinata nodded to himself in confirmation, and he looked up at the taller boy thoughtfully, a hint of excitement shining deep within his eyes.

“Does this mean you can toss to me forever?”

Kageyama opened his mouth to say something snarky and rude, but one glance at Hinata’s face, now positively glowing, and he thought better of it. Instead, he bent forwards and pressed his forehead against the other’s, their noses brushing against each other.

“Sure. Dumbass.”

And before his soulmate could insult him back, he pressed their lips together, their hands entwined. The crimson colour of the Fate String was a stark contrast against the pale colouring of the cool bathroom tiles as it pooled at the two’s feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic!!  
> Thank you for reading and giving kudos! Your comments really do make my day, so thanks so much for that!!


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